University of California Riverside 1985 laboratory raid

Britches is the name of Bärenmakaken, which was ( ALF) removed from a laboratory and are known by the following action on the media coverage in 1985 by activists of the Animal Liberation Front. Pictures of Britches are widespread in the animal liberation movement on t- shirts, badges or banners. A picture of the monkey is also found on the cover of the book From Dusk 'til Dawn by Keith Mann.

Life

Britches was ( UCR) was born in March 1985 in the discipline of the University of California, Riverside. Immediately after birth they separated Britches by his mother and sewed his eyelids. On his head an electric sonar was attached with bandages, which should work as a Blindenleitgerät and give warning tones. Britches should serve as an experimental animal in a three-year study that examined the behavior and performance of 24 monkeys under the influence of a sensory substitution system. The findings should be transmitted to humans.

On April 20, 1985, five weeks after the start of the experiment, the ALF activists broke into the laboratory of the University. The ALF activists remote Britches and more than 460 other animals from the laboratory, including mice, cats, opossums, pigeons, rabbits and rats.

Due to the media coverage of the animal liberation and Britches ' ​​living conditions in the laboratory public criticism of the experiment was loud, which was described among other things as " sadistic " and " inhumane ". The animal rights group PETA released a video with the filmed material of the ALF.

The ALF action had a dramatic impact on the future research at UCR. Due to the public outcry over Britches ' ​​treatment interrupted by the invasion studies were not continued. Since then, the eyes of infant monkeys may not be sewn up at the university. Britches was reintroduced by the ALF in a protected area in Mexico where he was adopted by a female monkey which had already reared monkeys several orphans.